


Carried Under

by Ruexla



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Awkward Doberman Puppy Simon, Background abuse/neglect mentioned, Baz is his usual trainwreck self, But also, Canon Divergence, Crime, Drugs and drug-dealing mentioned in later chapters, Gangs, Gangster Simon, Hardcore kidnapping, Jealousy, Love Triangles, M/M, Rating May Change, Simon without the therapy, Softcore kidnapping, The Humdrum doesn't manifest an identity but the dead spots are still happening, but only in Baz's head
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-03-19 05:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13697553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruexla/pseuds/Ruexla
Summary: “Treachery!” hissed monsieur 'I-Don't-Acknowledge-Abombinations.'At least he was looking at Baz now. Glaring. Glowering, even.Baz sighed.“Possibly,” he said wearily, “but it isn't mine.”-In another timeline David Salisbury is assassinated shortly after the death of Natasha Grimm-Pitch. Simon, left to find his own way into the magical community, associates with a very different social strata.Baz still doesn't manage to avoid him.





	1. Chapter 1

Baz blasts through a bricked-up wall and sprints into the tunnels beyond. 

Everything is a maze down here: old basements and wine-cellars intersecting with new parking garages and ancient catacombs. It's a good place to hide. It's an excellent place to become hopelessly lost. 

Baz has little interest in doing either. 

Instead, this is--

This is the result of too much wine. Too much tedious company. Too much boredom.

_(This is running because he knows he will be chased)._

This is a terrible idea.

\- - - 

A very few minutes earlier Baz was conducting business.

This business involved conversing (or attempting to converse) with a man who did not think that Baz ought to exist. The man eased his cognitive dissonance by speaking to air, looking at air, and generally behaving as though he were negotiating with a completely invisible entity. 

Baz believed that there might be more pleasant ways to spend an evening. 

Self-immolation, for instance. 

The very exclusive bar was closed. The very expensive bottle of wine was not. Baz poured what he fervently hoped would be the last glass. 

“Since we've agreed,” he began. His hand was already reaching for the parcel in his breast pocket. 

That was when the windows imploded.

\- - -

Baz hears footsteps behind him and also--

Off to his left?

He wonders which of the lieutenants Snow has brought with him tonight. 

He veers sideways and dives into a narrow service tunnel. It opens into a maintenance area and, on the far side, a stairwell leading up. 

Here is as good a place as any. 

Baz spins on his heel just as Simon Snow careens around the corner. He takes aim. 

“Have a nice trip!”

_See you next fall._

\- - - 

After the windows shattered Baz had already tipped the table and cast a _'Can't touch this'_ before his unsociable associate had time to react.

When that reaction finally came it was depressingly predictable. Baz turned to find a furious face and, more to the point, the tip of a wand wavering a few inches from his nose. 

“Treachery!” hissed monsieur _'I-Don't-Acknowledge-Abombinations.'_

At least he was looking at Baz now. Glaring. Glowering, even. 

Baz sighed. 

“Possibly,” he said wearily, “but it isn't mine.”

He was wracking his brains for the most probable culprit when a very distinctive scent answered his most immediate questions. Simon Snow smelled like a forest fire. 

There was no mistaking it. 

_(Except, possibly, for an actual forest fire)._

_(But this was a downtown street without any forests happening anywhere nearby)._

_(So)._

The windows hadn't been Snow's personal spellwork-- Baz knew what _that_ magic felt like-- but a quick glance around the upturned table revealed a very familiar silhouette climbing the stairs. Glass fragments crunched under heavily booted feet. 

They only had a few seconds. 

Despite being slightly distracted by reactions which he knew Fiona and also most other people would not consider appropriate to the situation, Baz thought quickly. 

“Spell yourself away,” he said, thrusting the parcel into the buyer's pocket, “I'll distract him.”

As an afterthought he added, “You can send the payment later.”

_Or else._

He did not need to say it. The old families had their Understandings. Sentiments like _“or else we will destroy your professional reputation and also hire a goblin gang to burn down every business premise you own”_ were conveyed in glances, not words. That made it much easier to maintain a polite day-to-day discourse. 

Baz sprang to his feet without waiting for a response. He pulled a translucent key out of his jacket pocket and held it up. It glistened enticingly, sparkling as if were made out of the finest silver-tinted glass. 

Because it was. 

Made out of silver-tinted glass, anyway. 

Baz couldn't actually attest to the quality of said glass, but it certainly looked good. 

“Looking for this?” he called.

And then he ran.

\- - -

Baz's spell is almost perfect. It _would_ have been perfect if one of Snow's interminable lieutenants wasn't right behind his general and far too quick with a counter-spell.

“Bounce back,” the boy says. His timing is irritatingly perfect. He manages to make it sound more like a languid suggestion than an urgent defense. 

Simon, damn him, sticks the landing with minimal assistance. 

There was a time when Baz-- younger and less adept at psychological self-dissection-- had hoped that if he humiliated Snow often enough in front of his followers that they would abandon him and. What? That version of Baz hadn't worked out what he wanted or expected to happen next. 

That was then.

This version of Baz is older, wiser, and infinitely more resigned to everything that won't happen.

Still. 

Baz tsks. “Careless. You realize I could have killed you? You made yourself a perfect target. How are you still alive?”

“You couldn't have gotten both of us,” says the bounce-back boy. He's a bit taller than Simon and looks like a kpop star who'd chosen to cosplay as a genderbent Elphaba. Very green. His voice is pleasant and his tone is offensively mild. 

_Kendrik._

Baz dislikes all of Snow's lieutenants without exception, but Kendrick is the worst of them. He forgets himself enough to glare.

Kendrik winks. 

“The key,” Simon snarls, “Now.” He's entirely ignored their exchange. His eyes are riveted on Baz.

Baz cheers up a little. 

“What key? Ooooh. _This_ key?” He starts to hold it out. Simon steps towards him and reaches for it. He should know better by now. 

Baz holds the key over his head, dangling it just out of Simon's reach. Simon tries to punch him in the gut. Baz was expecting it. He catches Simon's wrist before the blow can land.

“Fisticuffs?" He snorts. "Barbarian." He lets the key fall. 

To his credit, Simon manages to catch it with his off-hand. 

To his debit, Simon clutches the key so hard that it immediately snaps. 

Baz savors his confusion for a moment. And then for another. One more? 

“It's called a decoy, Snow,” he says, when Simon's minute facial twitches settle into blank incomprehension, “I would gloat, but, honestly? I'm embarrassed for you. You should have seen that coming.”

Baz releases Simon's wrist. Simon drops the key. It breaks into several more pieces. Simon steps on them. “Where is the real one?”

“Gone,” says Baz. 

Simon's just looking at him now. Angry. Confused. He seems at a loss, like a dog who'd failed to startle a rabbit into motion and now doesn't know how to chase something which isn't running. 

His hair is less of an unkempt disaster these days. Someone has trimmed the copper curls into order and given him an undercut. 

_Who?_ Baz wonders. Which one of them has Simon trusted with scissors at the back of his neck, so close to the vulnerability of open eyes and an unguarded jugular? 

Probably Kendrik. 

_Fucking Kendrik._

Simon's eyes are, in fact, straying in the goblin's direction like a bad actor turning to his teleprompter.

Baz steps closer. They're practically touching. He smirks. “Poor Snow,” he coos, voice dripping with insincere sympathy, “A thief and a thug and you're _still_ not even good at it.”

That does it.

Simon does not look at Kendrik. 

Simon grabs the collar of Baz's shirt and yanks it tight. Baz lets him. Simon's lips twist, the expression beginning as a mirror of Baz's sneer and ending in something with far more teeth. Snarling. Smiling. Hungry and hateful. 

“Maybe I'll just steal _you,_ ” he growls. 

Baz bites back a laugh. He sighs instead. 

“What. Again?”


	2. Chapter 2

Nicodemus Petty was nearly in a state of collapse when they'd finally found the crate. It was buried under loose sawdust in the darkest part of the slaughterhouse's mustiest holding pen. 

_“I regret this,”_ he groaned, _“I regret all of this. I regret you.”_

Whining was out of character for him. Simon supposed he must be in exceptional agony. 

When they'd first met Petty had wanted Simon's power. He'd wanted it like a drowning man wants for air. For life.

 _Not so eager anymore,_ Simon thought. He examined the crate's lid. It was nailed shut. 

_“I need a crowbar. Help me find one.”_

Petty swore, but he'd gotten up to help anyway. 

It was the year two-thousand and nine. Simon Snow was twelve years old. Magic was real. So were monsters, but he'd known that already. 

_(Simon supposed that he was one of them. He must be. People close to Simon suffered. Sometimes he hurt them just by existing)._

_(Maybe that was why he didn't have parents)._

_(Maybe they hadn't survived him)._

Nicodemus Petty was a monster too, but only technically. And he was a monster who _knew_ things. He had a sister who would talk to him... so long as he didn't say anything back. 

_”It's Natasha's boy,”_ she'd said, leaning against a fence post and speaking to the shadows where the light from the kitchen didn't reach, _”Poor thing. You'd think they'd at least leave the children out of it, wouldn't you? Not that we--”_

She'd faltered on the last word. It was horrible to hear an adult cry like that, especially when she was trying so hard not to. _“Oh, Nico. I'm sorry. I—”_

And she'd stumbled away, back towards the house.

Simon, perched high in the tree's branches, was sorry when she left. He liked Ebb. He liked listening to her. He wanted to hear more about magical life and magical people.

 _(About Watford, Watford,_ Watford _)_ \--

Wanting Watford hurt less than wanting a family. 

But it still hurt. 

_“Who's Natasha?”_ he'd asked Nicodemus on the bus on their way back to the basement where they lived. 

_“Put you're hat back on,”_ Nicodemus snapped. _“For crowley's sake, you're a missing kid. Don't you think we have enough problems without my getting arrested?”_

Simon put on his hat and pulled up his hood.

Nicodemus sighed. _“She meant Natasha Gimm-Pitch. Tyrannus's mother.”_

That got Simon's attention. 

_“Baz?_ Baz _was kidnapped?”_

Because Tyrannus Basilton Pitch mattered. He was the heir. The princeling. The closest thing the magical community had to royalty. He was both an object of envy and a bedtime story, because Nicodemus told Simon everything he could about magic and the magical community. That was his part of the deal. 

_“Apparently.”_

_“Who kidnapped him? Who has him now?”_

_“How should I--”_ But then Nicodemus had paused. _“I don't know,”_ he said in a more thoughtful tone. _“But... it might be worth finding out.”_

So they did. 

Nicodemus found a crowbar leaning against the warehouse wall. Simon accepted it from him and set to work.

Tyrannus Basilton Pitch was the first magical thing Simon ever stole.

\- - - 

Snow and Kendrik take Baz's wand. And his phone.

Then they stop for hot chocolate. 

Another of Snow's lieutenants, Trixie (Trixie the pixie, _crowley!_ ), meets them at an empty diner where sixteen cocoa packets are divided between four styrofoam cups and distributed democratically. 

“Where _were_ you?” Simon demands. “Kendrik called. Twice.” He sounds grouchy but, then, when does he not?

Trixie rolls her eyes. It's an expression on steroids because her cat-green eyes are inhumanly large. Her bald, narrow-sided skull is covered in fanciful tattoos. A punk revision of Tinkerbell leers from her arm. The tattoo's teeth have a decidedly carnivorous look. Baz knows from experience that Trixie's teeth are filed to match. The pinpoint scars on his hand may have healed, but the skin remembers. 

He sneers at her. 

She throws a fork at him.

“Well, Lissy called first, didn't she?” she answers Simon while Baz catches the utensil and tosses it back onto the pile.

Simon frowns. “Lissy?”

“Lissy-issy!”

Simon opens his mouth. Baz kicks him. Simon turns to glare bloody murder, fist raised, but when Baz only looks at him the hand falls back to his side. He forgets to ask Trixie who or what a 'Lissy-issy' might be. 

_You're welcome, Snow._

Trixie turns back to her pile of dubiously clean silverware. “Are we kidnapping Baz again?”

“We already did,” says Kendrik. He's playing with Baz's phone.

“Without you,” says Snow, “because you _weren't there._ ”

“Can I set him on fire?” Trixie asks. 

“No,” Baz tells her. 

“ _Trixie,_ ” growls Simon, at the same time.

“Could I have set him on fire if I was there earlier?”

Simon grunts. 

“Well.” Trixie drops the last set of rolled-up silverware into a container and picks up the cup which Kendrik had set at her elbow. “Then I didn't miss much, did I?”

\- - -

They take their cups of molten sludge and walk two blocks to the junk-ready remains of an old playground.

Simon keeps a tight grip on Baz's arm. 

_(Because, prisoner. It would be so awkward if anyone forgot)._

Baz sits on the only remaining swing. Simon stands across from him, his back to a geometric monstrosity of metal bars which can't possibly have survived this long without at least one attempted lawsuit. 

Trixie hangs upside down from the swingset's bar. She giggles occasionally while toying with a lighter.

Because of course she does. 

To be fair, Baz supposes he can't take it too personally. Trixie would probably burn down the entire world if that wouldn't mean the end of both the Hot Topic franchise and her latest version of 'Lissy-issy.' If he hadn't met Simon before Simon met Trixie Baz might have suspected that she was the reason why he always smelled like the aftermath of arson. 

Baz is fairly sure she's never actually killed anyone, though. 

Probably. 

Kendrik is still playing with Baz's phone. 

“Five missed calls from her majesty,” he reports. “And--”

The phone buzzes. Kendrik angles the screen towards Simon. Baz glimpses Niall's expression of default disapproval glowing above the call sign. 

“--Second call from the twig.”

“I was supposed to meet him,” says Baz. “Tell him I'm not dead.”

Kendrik swipes the screen and holds the phone to his ear. 

“His princeship isn't dead. No. Nope. Nothing to do with us. ...Possibly. Nope.” Kendrik pauses for a few seconds longer. He's grinning. His teeth are crooked, but they're _aesthetically_ crooked. That shouldn't be a thing. Maybe it isn't. Maybe Baz is just being exceptionally crazy tonight. “I'll tell him. Mmhm. Snap you later, twig.” 

Kendrik hangs up. Baz looks away.

“He says that you've lost note-copying privileges for a week because you stood him up. And that you should get abducted less often because it's, and I quote, 'vicariously humiliating.'”

Baz flashes his teeth in the goblin's general direction. 

Snow is still watching Baz. His expression is difficult to decipher. Sometimes it seems as if the nerves connecting Simon's facial muscles have been... not cut, precisely, but damaged. Frayed. Muted. Everything about Simon always seems constrained right up until the moment when it doesn't. At that point he typically either throws a punch, or. 

Or. 

_Contents under pressure,_ thinks Baz. _Like a shrapnel bomb. That's Simon._

“Who is Niall?” Simon asks. 

Baz looks at him blankly. “He's... Niall? You've met him.”

Simon gestures sharply, as if Baz is being deliberately obtuse. “To you. Why were you meeting him? What is he helping you with?”

Baz rolls his eyes. “An operation in Dubai, Snow. Didn't you know? He's my master of assassins. I bought him online.”

“He plays football,” Kenrik volunteers. “Bring him along next time, Baz. Dev too. We'll play scrimmage.”

Sure. 

Whyever the fuck not?

“Eeeew,” Trixie interjects, “sports. Boring.”

Kendrik snorts. “Doesn't Elizabeth play roller derby? Did you not force me to attend a roller derby competition with you just last week?”

“ _Forced_ you?! That's like-- that's like saying I _forced_ you to eat chocolate cake! It doesn't even make sense!”

“Some people don't like chocolate cake.”

“ _Well that's their problem!_ ”

“I prefer battenberg,” Baz contributes.

“Why did Lester want the key?” Simon demands, ignoring his lieutenants. 

_(Good)._

“To unlock something. That's generally what keys are for, Snow.”

“To unlock what?”

“Who knows?”

“You do.”

Baz shrugs. “No. I don't. Who hired you to steal it?”

Simon doesn't answer. A match flares. Kendrik is lighting a cigarette. Baz reaches for it. “Give,” he says. 

“Magic word?”

“What's yours is mine.” But Baz doesn't have his wand, so Kendrik only laughs. Then, because he's a friendly and forgiving sort of bastard (and damn him for that, too) he lights another.

“No,” says Simon, intercepting it before Baz can accept.

Baz kicks mulch at him. “You,” he says, “are a terrible host.”

“And you're flammable.”

Baz had been swaying, propelling himself by a heel anchored in the mulch. Now he falls still.

_Flammable._

Of course. Because they know. Everyone knows. 

But this particular _everyone_ should have the sense to pretend otherwise. 

Baz hates being looked through. He hates it when people like Lester treat him as though he's invisible. But in this, in this one thing, being seen is so much worse. 

Trixie is playing with her lighter again. Baz hears the click, click, _click_ of it underlying everything. 

Simon snaps the cigarette in half. “If we ever kill you,” he says, dropping the split ends and crushing them into the dirt, “It won't be by accident.”

Baz stares at him. Then, without ever breaking eye contact, he thrusts his hand in Trixie's direction. 

“Wha-- hey!” 

He doesn't need a wand for fire. He never has. Fire is its own way out. It feeds off of the magic in his blood and comes alive.

Maybe it will kill him someday. Maybe it will kill him tonight. Baz doesn't care. Every time he survives feels like a vindication. The day he doesn't? Well. 

Fire is cleansing, and vampires burn fast. There are worse ways to go. 

Simon had twitched forward as if tugged by an invisible string. He stops just as abruptly. Hovers. 

Baz holds his hand in front of his face as the tiny flame twines between his spread fingers. Simon is a statue before him; all hard edges and brittle ice except in the ice-colored eyes. Baz thinks that those would still appear to burn even if they weren't reflecting firelight. 

Baz draws the moment out. It's something like revenge. Something like intoxication. 

Then he snaps his hand shut.

Simon flinches. 

That's intoxicating too.

Baz opens his hand again and displays his empty, unmarked palm.

“Noted,” he says. His snaps the consonants like dry twigs. Like kindling.

For a long, long moment nobody moves. 

Then, 

“Sweet!” Trixie flips to the ground, shrieking with laughter. “Do it again!”

Kendrik covers his face with his hands. “ _Trixie._ No.”

“Trixie yes!”

Simon still hasn't moved. His eyes are a natural disaster. 

_(A forest fire on every side)._

_(Nowhere to run)._

“No,” repeats Kendrik. 

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“ _No._ ”

“Yes infini--”

Simon goes off.


	3. Chapter 3

Baz barely manages to pull his legs onto the curb before Fiona runs over them. 

“Back seat,” She snaps. She's wearing her formal attire and her lipstick is an unusually respectable color. That's never a good sign. “Front seats are for people who haven't been abducted by fucking lowlifes! _Again!_ Christ.”

\- - -

_Hey, twig,_ says an unfamiliar number.

Niall sits his tumbler down with the careful precision of a self-aware drunk. He counts out precise change for his tab, ignoring the fact that it is quite probably precisely wrong, and knocks over his barstool on the way to the door. 

Blurry brakelights tint the morning drizzle an attractive shade of red. That is ok. The headlights aren't. They hurt. 

Niall calls the unfamiliar number. “No,” he tells it. “Blocked. Deleted. Go away.”

The asshole chuckles. He has the decency to do it quietly, but _decency_ is not an endearing trait. 

Not from him. 

“Crowley, twig. How much have you had?”

Niall rests the back of his head against the damp black brickwork. A bored-looking bouncer watches him from the portico. 

“How much?” Niall laughs. It sounds wrong. Too high. Too brittle. He hates it. “You know how much. None. Zero.”

The bastard is silent for a long moment. “Not what I meant.”

“I'm done talking to you.” Niall cradles the phone. “Your voice is obji-- ob-- objish--”

“Sound it out.”

“Ob-ject. Shon. Able.”

“Good. That was good. _'Vicariously.'_ I liked that one too. Good word.”

“I hate you.”

“...I know.”

And that's the problem, isn't it? The bastard knows. He knows too much.

The contents of Niall's stomach are attempting not to be. 

_I didn't want to hear your voice tonight._

_I didn't want to hear your voice again. Ever._

But there it was-- and is-- anyway.

“You,” said Niall, focusing carefully on his pronunciation, “need to die. In a fire. Please.”

“Can't. Goblin, remember? Fireproof.”

“Do it anyway, darling. For me.”

Another long pause. 

“Niall.”

Niall jerks the phone away from his ear. His hand hovers over the end-call button.

“Go home,” says Kendrik. His voice sounds tinny and faint and so terribly, mercifully unlike the real thing. “You can't be there. It isn't safe.”

Niall ends the call. And hurls his phone into traffic. And stares at a shaking hand which doesn't feel as if it belongs to him. 

He thinks about all of those indistinct faces in the club. Which one of them had Kendrik on their contact list?

_Fucking Kendrik._

Niall throws a one-fingered salute at the bouncer. He mirrors it with his other hand when the man's only response is a pitying look, and then goes to throw up in the alleyway. 

Niall makes it home. 

Technically. 

He's in front of the gate when a not-at-all inconspicuous white SUV pulls up beside him. 

_Shit._

“ _'Go home, Niall,'_ ” he mutters in a high-pitched imitation of Kendrik's insufferable lilt, “ _'It isn't safe, Niall.'_ ”

The passenger-side window rolls down. 

“This isn't a fucking movie,” Niall says. He points at the man's sunglasses. “Those. No. It's four a.m. And raining. There is no excuse.”

No reaction. Of course not. 

“Mr. and Madam Lester are waiting,” the man says. It sounds like something he's said often. 

Niall silently curses everything.

Then he gets in the car.

\- - -

“No,” says Baz when someone pounds on his door the following morning.

_(Afternoon? Whatever)._

The door slams open. 

Baz curls deeper into the covers, his pillow pressed over his head. Fiona yanks it away.

“Lester called!”

“Fiona. Inside voice. Please.”

“No.” She hits him with the pillow. Worst. Aunt. Ever. “Get up. Lester called. The key's been stolen.”

Baz considers the information. “His problem. Not ours.”

“That's almost true, Tyrannus,” Fiona says sweetly, “It would be true if _someone_ hadn't run away and gotten kidnapped before accepting payment.” 

Baz rolls onto his back. 

“He's refusing to pay.”

“Oh, that. Also that. Yes. And he's insinuating very strongly that we had something to do with the theft.” 

_Making it our problem._

Not that it wasn't already. The key was an unconditional artifact: one which would work for anyone whether magical or not. Artifacts like that could cause serious problems. Nobody wanted a repeat of Annabelle.

Fiona tosses the pillow onto the floor. “Snow,” she says, “he's our best lead. Find out who hired him. I'm meeting Lester at five. Have something for me before then, Baz. I mean it.”

She slams the door on her way out.

\- - - 

Baz didn't know if he'd lost consciousness, but he'd certainly gained pain. When the blinding ache finally died out of his brain and he opened his eyes, he saw that the jungle-gymn had become a mess of contorted metal. Bits of it glowed red-hot.

_Was that factory always missing so many windows?_

Baz couldn't remember. He didn't think so. 

When the ringing in his ears died down it gave way to the sound of Kendrik groaning and Trixie's nonstop stream of inventive cursing. 

Baz's phone lay in the mulch beside him. He sat up and reached for it. 

“Screen's cracked,” he said. His voice sounded strange in his own ears. “Fourth time. Thank's for tha--”

Snow shoved him. Baz's back hit the mulch and then Snow was over him. One of the disaster's hands introduced Baz's shoulder to new splinters. The other gripped his jaw. Hard. 

“You shouldn't have done that,” Snow snarled. “If you ever do that again I will--”

_Oh, for fuck's sake._

“What?” Baz demanded, “You'll _what,_ Snow? Incinerate me?”

The fury in Simon's eyes was its own creature. Baz half expected another shockwave. It didn't come. 

Instead Simon grabbed him by handfuls of his shirt and lifted him a few inches off of the ground before slamming him down again. 

Baz waited. Then he sighed. 

“Finished?”

There was no answer. Simon's grip loosened. He sat back. 

Baz held out his hand. “Give me my wand. I'm leaving.”

“Why should I let you?” Simon was looking away from him, fists clenched and teeth visible under pulled-back lips. “They don't want you back. They've never wanted you back before.”

The last of the anger seeped out of Baz, leaving nothing except a bone-deep exhaustion. And the headache. It had been a long night, and the reference to his family reminded him that it wasn't over yet. “Oh, fuck off,” he muttered. 

Maybe Baz should have hated Simon for saying that about his family, but he didn't. Simon was simply wrong. Fiona didn't refuse to pay ransoms because she didn't want Baz back, she refused to pay ransoms because she was a Pitch. Simon couldn't understand that. Baz could. He was born of the same stuff. 

The handle of his wand was visible poking out of Simon's side pocket. Baz retrieved it and stood up. 

Sirens played in the distance. 

"They don't want you," Snow called after him, angry and confused and resenting. Baz wondered if the disaster himself even knew what he meant by it. "You don't belong there." The words were harsh, but the implications were...

...Were the opposite of eyes looking through him, because they were held by someone stupid enough to believe that abominations could _belong_ anywhere.


End file.
